


all the world is nameless

by xahra99



Series: Odyssey [3]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Backstory, Beaches, Canon Backstory, Drinking, Drinking & Talking, Gen, Murder, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 12:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14188851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xahra99/pseuds/xahra99
Summary: 1710. Why does Anne know where Vane's going when he sails off to Albinus' island, but Jack doesn't? Vane backstory. Pre-series. Complete.Part three of an eight-part series.





	all the world is nameless

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here it is, the fic series nobody asked for for a programme that finished last year because I like to watch entire series on Amazon rather than waiting for each episode to come out. Part three of eight Black Sails character studies/missing scenes. This is my attempt at writing minimally-angsty Vane backstory, because it's clear in the series that Anne knows where Vane's going where he sails to Albinus' island and Jack doesn't. It's one of the shortest fics I've written for Black Sails and maybe one of my favourites. Canon-typical-violence from the start, I'm afraid (this is Vane after all) so gentle reader, if that is not your thing you should click away now. Black Sam Bellamy is an actual pirate from the golden age of piracy, and his ship, the Whydah, was a former slaver.  
> The title quotes are from the Odyssey, from both Emily Wilson's and the Penguin translation (in one case both) because I'm a massive geek.

“What did you parents name you? With what name were you known to your people? Surely no one in all the world is nameless, poor or noble, since parents give a name to every child at birth.” -The Odyssey.

 

Vane’s backstory.

 

Anne Bonny: “You don’t know where he’s gone, do you? He ain’t coming back.”

 

_Nassau, 1710_

 

Black Sam Bellamy collapses onto the beach in a spray of bloodied sand.

He tries to stand, shudders, and crumples. The _Whydah’s_ quartermaster and a few of the bolder members of her crew head out onto the beach to help their captain.

Vane snarls “Nobody touch him!”

There’s blood on his hands and murder in his eyes. The _Whydah_ crew glance sidelong at each other and retreat. Bellamy is finished. Anyone can see that. There’s no point in joining him.

Bellamy thrashes like a landed fish. He rolls over and crawls towards the town, sees Vane waiting there and drags himself back towards the sea.  He pants as his elbows dig into the wet sand, trailing a bloody wake behind him, and stops only when the waves splash his face. Gasping, he rolls onto his back. Perhaps he realizes the futility of escape. Perhaps he is simply too weak to scrabble further.

Anne wraps her arms around her knees as the denizens of Nassau drift away, murmuring uneasily. Rackham crouches down beside her, cradling a bottle of rum in the crook of his arm.

Vane hunkers down on his heels in the sand next to Rackham and gestures to Jack’s bottle. “Pass it over.”

Jack rolls his eyes and hands over his bottle. Anne drinks, listening to Vane’s rasp and Jack’s drawl, as Vane grasps the bottle by its neck and drains the flask in one long pull.  

Rackham grimaces. He shifts, coughs, twists his moustache, and finally says what everybody in Nassau is thinking. “Why the hell did you do that?”

Vane wipes his mouth and sets the empty vessel beside him in the sand. He does not answer Jack.

Rackham forges on regardless. “You’ve put us in a very difficult situation, you know. Bellamy’s crew are capable men. They won’t like this at all. We should prepare for reprisals.”

Vane shrugs. “They any good?”

Jack’s eyebrows meet across the bridge of his nose. “What?”

“Bellamy’s crew,” asks Vane. “Are they any good?”

Rackham flounders for a moment before he regains his composure. “I suppose they are. As good as any crew beneath the black.”

“Ask them to join us.”

Rackham gestures to the slowly-expiring Bellamy. “What, _now_?”

Vane shrugs. “Maybe later.” 

“How should I persuade them they should join us? You just killed their captain! More to the point, how do I convince them you won’t do the same to them?”

“Tell them their captain crossed me.” Vane rasps. “Tell them I intend to take the biggest fucking prize Nassau’s ever seen. Tell them something, Jack. I don’t much care what. Just do your fucking job.”

Jack’s gaze slides along the beach to where Bellamy splutters like a beached whale. “ _Fine_.” he snaps. “Kill him, then, and let’s be on our way.”

Vane pulls a coin from his pocket and walks it across his knuckles. “No,” he says without looking up.

Jack stares at Vane as if he’s gone insane, “No what?”

“Man like that don’t deserve a quick death.” Vane flips the coin again. “I’m not killing him. Not yet.”

Jack gestures at the stricken man. “So you’re just going to sit here and watch him _die_?”

“Looks like it.”

“At least finish him quickly.”

“Mm.”

Jack stands, dusting off the seat of his breeches. “You know,” he says, voice tight. “I never took you for a savage. Despite what other people say. I find I must reconsider my opinion.”

“Do,” Vane rasps.

“ _Fine_ ,” Jack snarls. “Watch him die, if you want. But don’t expect me to recruit his crew when you’re done. I’ve seen men die, you know. It’s not a _show_. So don’t expect me to sit here and watch it like…like some sort of cheap cabaret.” He turns in a flurry of calico coattails and stalks back along the beach. 

“Fuck you, Jack,” Vane shouts after him. He raises his arm and throws the coin at Rackham’s retreating back.  The coin thuds into the beach, spraying Jack with sand. He flinches, sets his shoulders, and continues his march towards Nassau town.

“Go on, then,” Vane says to Anne.

Anne ignores him. She tips the brim of her hat down to shade her eyes. Her hand finds the neck of her own bottle. She raises the flask and drinks as she watches Black Sam Bellamy die. 

Vane follows her gaze. “You want to know why I did it?”

The sun sinks into the sea as Bellamy’s eyes glaze over. Anne wonders what it must feel like, to have that certainty. To know, indisputably, the day of your death. “Not particularly.”

“He killed his fucking slaves,” Vane says.

Anne looks up in surprise. Vane barely talks to her except by way of Rackham. She wonders what has prompted this sudden confession, decides she doesn’t particularly care. She takes another drink.

“Bellamy picked a fight he knew he had no hope of winning.” Vane rises abruptly. He paces along the beach with quick, jerky strides, simmering with barely restrained rage. “Dumped them in the sea to speed his passage. Someone had to make that bastard pay for what he’s done.”

Anne takes another drink.

Vane crouches down beside an abandoned campfire and lights a cigar from the ashes. “I was a slave,” he says speaking quietly enough that only Anne and Bellamy can hear. “We sailed from London. Indentured servants, headed to the Indies. Bad luck from the start. Captain didn’t know his business. Voyage should’ve took a month.” He exhales smoke in quick, short bursts. “Two months later we were still at sea. Sickness came. People died.”

Bellamy’s hand twitches. Anne lowers her bottle as her hand drifts to her sword-hilt. She’s disappointed. The dying man does not make another move.

“We’d sighted land when a storm blew up. Thought our luck couldn’t get any worse.  That storm forced us halfway ‘cross the ocean, seemed like. Lost ten men just trying to fight it. Counted ourselves lucky when the crew sighted land.” Vane scratches at his shoulder beneath his shirt.

Despite herself, Anne is intrigued. “What land?”

“An place not far from here run by a pirate captain. Albinus. He gave up the sea to sell timber. Ship needed repairs. The captain worked out a trade. Five of us in exchange for two masts.”

Anne risks a question. “Albinus?”

Vane flicks ash from his cigar. “A giant. Six feet tall, bald as an egg. Half a hundred hard men at his back. But that was years ago. I swore that one day I’d be back. Kill him. Free them. Burn that fucking place to the ground. Never did. Not like anything’s stopping me from sailing right there now.”

“Your crew,” she says.

“Fuck the crew.” Vane stubs his cigar out in the sand and grimaces as if he’s disgusted with himself. “It’s me. Too fucking frightened.”

Anne nearly drops her bottle. She has never known Charles Vane to be frightened of anyone or anything.

Vane sees her staring. “Just so we’re clear. You don’t tell anyone about this.” He reaches down to touch the hilt of the pistol tucked into his belt. “Understand?”

Anne nods.

Vane grunts.

Anne reaches out and hands him her bottle. Vane nods at her as if he hadn’t been threatening her life only seconds ago.  He takes a deep swallow, grimaces, and wipes his mouth. Then he hands the bottle back.

Further down the beach, Bellamy coughs. The cough turns to a guttural death rattle. His eyes roll up, displaying their whites, which glisten like sea creatures.  The sea laps at his face. He does not blink.

Anne and Vane sit side by side in the sand and watch the sun set behind a dead man’s corpse.  

Vane sighs. “That bastard didn’t know any of this. If he had, he might have made different decisions.” 

“So fucking what?” Anne bares her teeth, spits into the sand. “If he didn’t do that he did something else. Fuck him. Mind if I take his rings?”

Vane inclines his head. “Go ahead.”

Anne pockets Bellamy’s rings and a few other pieces of jewellery. Then she turns and sets off across the sand, her coat heavy with a dead man’s jewels. She leaves Vane the bottle.

She finds Jack hunched on the porch of a palm shack on the edge of Nassau town, knees drawn up to his chest, chin on his fists. “Bellamy’s dead?” he asks as soon as he sees Anne.

Anne nods.

Rackham exhales through his teeth. He leans back and jams his hands in his pockets. “Bloody great. Bloody _perfect_ , in fact. What the fuck are his men going to think?”

“His men’ll join us,” Anne says.

“Some might,” Jack agrees. “Most of them will probably want to kill us.” He glances glumly back along the sand to where Bellamy’s carcass lies sprawled in the sand like a shipwreck. “It’s hard enough to recruit crew as it is.”

“We’ll find crew,” she says.

Jack shakes his head. “Oh, we’ll find crew. It’s what _sort_ of crew that worries me.  A captain with a brutal reputation attracts vicious men. We could both do without that. But Vane’s not a complete savage. He doesn’t kill men for nothing.” He turns to Anne. “We both know Bellamy crossed a line. What happened?”

Anne shrugs.

“I’ve always thought it strange, you know,” Jack strokes his moustache, a sign he thinks himself especially cunning.  “The Guthrie woman doesn’t deal in slaves. Yet she trades in all else to be found upon those shores. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Dunno,” Anne says.

“Fine,” Jack looks wounded, but Anne knows he will have forgotten all about it next time he wants a fuck. “I thought we had no secrets from each other.”

Anne shrugs again. They both know Jack has no intention of sailing under another captain despite his protestations. It has been years since either of them sailed on any ship beside the _Ranger,_ and Anne has no intention of telling anyone what Vane told her. She doubts Vane has any intention of letting her live if she does.

“Come on,” she says, tugging at Jack’s sleeve. “I need a drink.”

They leave the body behind them, and slouch off along the strand.

***

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Why not check out some of my other finely-crafted fics? Next up: hilarious Jack/Vane/Anne adventures!


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